18 seniors were named National Merit semifinalists on Sept. 12 after achieving high scores on the Oct. 2013 PSAT. The Wildcat Tales congratulates seniors Rohan Bhatt, Serena Chen, Ria Chhabra, Min Cho, Jeremy Doan, Claire Goeckner-Wald, Jessica Hong, Elaine Hu, Justin Jang, Brittany Kiattitananan, I-Chun Lin, Zara Louis, Aditya Nelakonda, Colin O’Day, Chandler Richards, Sarina Wu, Joseph Yin, and Joshua Ying. Chen, Goeckner-Wald, Yin and Ying were unavailable for an interview.

Rohan Bhatt

Q: What were your initial thoughts when you found out you qualified as a semifinalist?
A: I kind of understood that I would because they sent a letter beforehand, but to find out I was actually a semifinalist was pretty cool because it’s going to help my applications. Last year was very hard for me, especially because my father passed away in October. It was really awesome for my family to get good news in such a dark period.

Ria Chhabra

Q: What activities do you participate in outside of school?
A: I have this charity called Cupcakes for a Cause, and it was hard to run that because we baked all the time. It was hard to maintain that. Also, my science fair stuff is really time consuming. My studying for the PSAT actually got in the way of my activities.

Brittany Kiattitananan

Q: What are your future plans?

A: I think it has made more colleges aware of me and helped my prospects of getting into a college I want to get into. Although I don’t know the career that I’d like later, college is the first step in getting to my future plans, so this is definitely going to affect them.

Min Cho

Q: What activities do you participate in outside of school?
A: I’m in the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra program, and I’m the principal violist there. I have school orchestra and I have volunteering programs. I’m going around to nursing houses and playing for people.

Elaine Hu

Q: How much did you study in preparation for the PSAT?
A: I did practice tests outside of school, mainly SATs. They helped tremendously in building up my testing stamina, as geeky as that sounds.

Justin Jang

Q: What were your initial thoughts when you found out you qualified as a semifinalist?
A: I just said, ‘are you sure?’ and that was about it. I didn’t really have a huge reaction.

Aditya Nelakonda

Q: What were your initial thoughts when you found out you qualified as a semifinalist?
A: I was happy. But they don’t give out too much money, so I wasn’t that happy. I thought they were going to give a lot of money but they didn’t, so I was disappointed. I wasn’t even that happy.

Colin O’Day

Q: What are your future plans?
A: I want to go to college, dental school, then maybe specialty school. I’m looking at becoming a periodontist. This will help me go to college for a much cheaper price.

Chandler Richards

Q: What were your initial thoughts when you found out you qualified as a semifinalist?
A: I was extremely happy. My first thought was, ‘this will look great on college applications.’ I’ve been really worried about that, so that was a big thing for me.

Sarina Wu

Q: How much did you study in preparation for the PSAT?
A: I’ve been in SAT class since 9th grade, up until 11th grade or so. I was working for a while because I wanted to get good SAT scores. The PSAT was like a little practice test.

I-Chun Lin

Q: What are your future plans?
A: I want to become a doctor, but I’m not sure what kind. I’m still deciding between neurosurgeon and other options.

Jeremy Doan

Q: What were your initial thoughts when you found out you qualified as a semifinalist?
A: Well it was mainly a huge sigh of relief for me since I wasn’t too sure whether or not my score would qualify this year. I was really happy about it.

Zara Louis

Q: What are your future plans?
A: I want to go to college and then I want to become a cardiologist or plastic surgeon. I want to help people. I hope this will help me get into better schools and get a better education, but I guess we’ll see.

Jessica Hong

Q: What were your initial thoughts when you found out you qualified as a semifinalist?
A: I was really excited because this is a pretty big deal. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was going to get it so it was really encouraging because I think it will help me in my college application process.